


Oath

by Jeremy Patrick (IrisAnne)



Series: The Seven Lost Stories [1]
Category: youtube - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angels, Arranged Marriage, Demons, Fictional Religion & Theology, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Multi, Name Changes, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-binary character, Rebirth, Succubus, incubus, transgender character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2019-11-04 03:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17890460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisAnne/pseuds/Jeremy%20Patrick
Summary: "If only I could remember you"Ethan is a young angel with a carefree spirit, in charge of protecting a small port town that once used to belong to the Heavenly Yard. When he is wounded and has to hide in the port town, Ethan meets and falls in love with a human named Mark and now must face the choices that will change the Heavenly Laws forever---betray everyone he knew and become human, or kill the man he loves.





	1. .

_For Jack._

 

~

 

"I dread too soon, for my psyche misgives;

Some outcome, yet hanging in the stars,

will harshly start.”

 

 

~


	2. Prologue

The breeze brushed gently along their cheeks, it’s whispers soft and melodic in their ears being accompanied by the warm sun kissing the earth goodnight as the sky was painted in its magnificent golds and reds and purples. Everything was bathed in a sea of red, from the clouds in the sky to the skin on their arms. The angel who took the appearance of a man with sorrowful blue eyes sighed.

“Will you go on no matter what?” 

the broken voice of the younger angel cried silently. The man only smiled sadly at the younger boy’s expression, and the boy wept more, his usually bright demeanor nowhere to be found.

“What do you think of this world, Ethan?” 

Without answering his question, the man chuckled softly, hesitant to break the stillness of the moment. Ethan felt a pang in his chest---that laugh, his smile, his demeanor, made him feel so melancholic…

“What do I… think? I don’t understand-”

“I think God is cruel.”

The blunt words knocked the wind out of Ethan, who stared in shock at his mentor. The man stood unwavering against the soft wind, his blue eyes once soft and kind now hard and cold. He continued,

“We were born again into this world because of  _ his _ love for us, and yet he doesn’t want to grant it to us---the most important thing the living beings in this world has.”

Ethan scrunched up his eyebrows. He felt confused by the older man’s words, and he felt uneasy at his strange calmness. No, it was better that he didn’t understand.

“Ethan… Thank you.”

Suddenly, his view became wrapped in sheer white. Feeling warmth radiate and surround his whole body, Ethan realized he was being embraced by him. A pitch black shadow emerged from the back of his mentor, and he gasped at the feeling of feathers caressing his cheek as the came off of the man’s wings, giving a stark contrast to his white appearance.

“My heart and my mind hasn’t changed at all, but this body, this  _ life _ …it was never meant to be mine in the first place.”

“I don’t understand- How- Your wings!”

“The reason I am alive, my purpose in this world… One day, the time that you’ll understand its meaning of that word will come.”

“Please! Don’t leave me behind! You’re my closest brethren!”

Letting out the feelings he had been enduring, tears ran endlessly down his cheeks. The days spent with him were going to end. He didn’t want that. It would be too lonely.

The man caressed Ethan’s head softly, running his large hand through the younger’s blue hair and humming the lullaby he knew would put Ethan in a sleep-like state. He felt the smaller boy relax in his arms, and he pressed something small and cool into his hand.

“I’m sorry Ethan.”

With elegant movements, he lifted his body off the ground with powerful flaps that moved the branches of the trees that surrounded them and turned his back to Ethan.

The outstretched arm that sought to restrain him grasped, vainly, at the air.

“ ”

Hearing his name shouted that last time, the man looked back for a moment and laughed that raucous laugh of his. Blurred by the glare of the orange sunset, a single something gleamed and shone on his cheek, and rolled on.


	3. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ethan and Mika discuss their past.

Ethan jerked awake, his breaths flooding his lungs in quick, intermittent bursts. The unfamiliar feeling of air rushing into his lungs disoriented the young angel for a moment before he could center himself again to the thick, rough branch of the tree he rested on. There were birds chirping nearby, a stream running in the distance and, if Ethan concentrated hard enough, he could hear the ocean by the cliffs south of his location. The leaves of the tree filtered the midday sun to a green color and sheltered him from its warm rays that would’ve blinded him had he woken up in the middle of the clearing he had decided to rest by.

“That dream again…” He rubbed an eye with his hand---the other propping him up from the rough tree bark---willing his drowsiness to go away. With a simple flick of his wrist energy flowed from the top of his head down to the tip of his fingers, leaving him with a slight tinglish sensation similar to rock salt flowing like water. “For someone who’s supposed to be an angel of dreams, I never seem to dream of anything else but that person,” he muttered to himself. 

With a quick movement Ethan hopped off the tree branch he was laying on and landed silently on the balls of his feet. His entire body felt energized despite the fact that he had been sleeping in the same position for an extended period of time, the wind agreeing with his sentimentality and fluttering around his large white wings. The cool spring day felt so lovely against his pale skin that Ethan found himself wishing that he could manipulate the elements like the angels just above his ranking so he could experience clear days like these without any worries or responsibilities.

Due to his nature as an angel of dreams, Ethan often found his mind wandering, unfocused on the tasks at hand. His childish temperament and his relatively young age left him most times unable to concentrate for long periods of time, something that caused him problems with his superiors that were---unlike him---not angels of dreams or the like. His lower ranking status in the existing hierarchy of angels coupled with his lackadaisical tendencies (in context of his work anyway) left him quite literally at the bottom of the pyramid with no real change of moving up in ranking. (His official title of  _ angelos _ implied that his sole purpose in this life is to convey messages between all angels. If it bothered Ethan, he didn’t let it show---unlike his friend Mika, whose purpose to guard over prophets born into the world solidified her place in the hierarchy as a messenger that extended from just angels to angels  _ and  _ humans, further preventing her from moving up indefinitely.)

Ethan didn’t mind as much as his other brethren who were also doomed to stay in the same position. Although it restricted him in his abilities to control and manipulate other lower-ranking angels, it also gave him the freedom to wander down in the human world and observe other humans while simultaneously keeping their unconscious minds safe from the temptations and nightmares demons often infected them with. Ethan couldn’t  _ control _ their dreams, per say, but he did his best to ensure that humans were kept safe from a demon’s influence in their dreams by influencing their subconcious. He liked to think he did a good job in that category, even if he did tend to get distracted from his job watching the dreams instead of directly affecting them.

Along with being able to watch and influence dreams, Ethan was exceptionally talented in being able to put any creature to sleep and rouse them awake with ease, the creature awakening well-rested no matter how long they were unconscious for. No other angel of dreams had been able to successfully accomplish such a feat; Ethan puffed up his chest and beamed with pride at the fact. Recently he’s been using his power on himself, seeing as angels couldn’t naturally fall asleep by themselves given that it was not seen as a necessity and they didn’t need to rest to replenish their energy. Over a period of roughly seven decades Ethan has forced himself to sleep and rise again with the cycles of the sun, sleeping only at midday when most humans were awake and safe from their dreams. Often times after waking up he was left with the same feeling of melancholy deep in his chest.

“If only I could remember who that person is...”

The remnants of the dream forgotten, Ethan shrugged a freckled shoulder and began a short trek to the clearing aforementioned. The spring air smelled sweet, its aroma filled with scents of the ocean crashing along the seashore, the flowers that blossomed in nearby orchards, the clean crisp air that blew all of Ethan’s worries away. The sun embraced Ethan’s limber body in its warm glow, enveloping him in a blanket of happiness and melancholy.

Again, an old memory triggered another flashback, but it was gone

_ laughing, the kind woman was laughing with a bright smile on her face as it rippled in the reflection and another man laughed too with a white light shining behind him _

just as quick as it came. Ethan frowned.

“Everything reminds me of some old memory, it seems,” he commented out loud. “It’s like grabbing a fish in a stream with your bare hands---every time you feel like you’ve got it it slips away from your grasp.”

“And I don’t suppose your new superior has anything to do with it?” a sarcastic albeit feminine voice called behind him. Ethan turned to face his new companion, unsurprised at being caught up in his own thoughts.

“Mika,” he nodded. The red-haired angel grunted, letting her body fall gracelessly down next to Ethan, her own white wings hidden from view suggesting that she had leaped from a great distance when she spotted Ethan.

Mika Magdalena had a sharper temperament than her friend Ethan Evangelos; she was quick-witted, and had a sharp tongue. Like most angelos, she despised her ranking and believed down to her core how unfair it was that she would never possess the ability to move up in the hierarchy of angels. She spent most of her time complaining to Ethan how the higher ranking angels viewed them as pawns, replaceable soldiers in the war against demons and humans, and as such refused to work with a higher ranking partner typical of the system enacted in place by a seraphim by the name of Marzia Barachiel who happened to be Ethan’s quote unquote “mother” as the Saint Patroness of Dreams. (Mika’s own patron was another seraphim who took the appearance of a man by the name of Phil Gabriel, Saint Patron of Prophets. Ethan had met him on one occasion by accident, and thought of him as a very friendly albeit strict person.)

“I think you’re being unfair,” Ethan said. “I can’t remember who my old partner was no matter how much I try and it’s against the rule for me to find out their true identity.

“Besides,” he continued, “Kathryn isn’t  _ that _ bad. Even though you two were born around the same time you barely know her.”

“You don’t get it,” Mika frowns, shaking her head. “You weren’t  _ there _ when the fighting was actually happening. Sure, sometimes it happens  _ now _ , but one random encounter with a demon is different than an actual battle with  _ hundreds _ of them and only a couple handful of us with no seraphim or archangels to fight alongside us.

“I lost people I care about too, you know.” She turned away, her hazel eyes unable to look into Ethan’s similar ones. “I might have only been a century and half old then, but I lost the people I’ve known my whole life up to that point.” She shook her head, as if shaking the memory away. “It doesn’t matter now, I suppose, but I’m just saying that it’s better to remember the person you’ve lost than forget them for all eternity. I don’t remember who they were either, thanks to your superiors, but if you had the opportunity to remember who they were if it meant refusing to submit to the will of the others, wouldn’t you take that chance and see who that person was?”

Ethan wasn’t sure how to respond. Mika sighed and pulled her short hair away from her face, the flowy material of her white dress blowing freely with the breeze and encasing her in a magnificent array of light. The sight would’ve taken any human’s breath away; Ethan had seen the same sight for over four hundred years. 

“Show off.”

Mika snorts.

“Come on, let’s go. If we leave now we’ll be able to hang out by the beach before I have to go in and report to  _ Saint Phil _ .”

“Let’s.”


	4. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark and Signe talk about their future.

_Tick_

_tock._

_Tick_

_tock._

_Tick_

_tock._

_Tick_

_tock._

_Tick_

_tock._

Mark tapped his foot on the marble floor, the sound resonating so quickly in the otherwise empty room that it almost sounded like a hum. In the other room, his parents were discussing the matter of his marriage to the Johannessen’s eldest daughter---a pretty girl of twenty-two years of age who goes by the name of Signe. Mark previously met the young girl at his family’s annual holiday party two springs ago. She had recently turned twenty the night they met; Mark thought that she was a lovely girl who had potential to blossom into a fine and handsome woman, but Mark didn’t see any other reason to try and woo her other than his family’s interest in her family’s money. 

The Beck family shares a long history of nobility, their roots firmly implanted in the mercantry business but recently expanding their names in the financial and architecture world as well. Not surprisingly, they also served as Dukes for their small province of Peccadillo, a large island in the middle of the biggest lake in the kingdom. For centuries the Beck family stood strong and proud over their small provenance, prideful of the fact that despite the islands’ size the state itself had the most fertile land and was equally rich in resources and minerals. As it stood, however, their dwindling family fortune has forced Mark and his family to turn to marrying someone like the Johannessens. 

Unlike his family, the Johannessens recently entered the nobility world after they managed to build a monopolized empire over farming equipment. Though subsequently caught and restrained from continuing to build this empire, the Kingdom of Kjellberg thought it best to leave their wealth untouched and from there they gained notoriety for being so bold and ambitious in their plans to make money. Their fortune is recent, their middle-class ancestry built on farming and apothecary was just as respectable as their money, too. One of their most famous family members also happened to be the direct descendants of King Kjellberg himself, a man legendary for building the entire nation from the seed of a fortunata shrub.

(Even if the story is much more complex than that, the origins of the island of Kjellberg unfortunately remains a mystery to many of the inhabitants themselves and, as such, many are too ashamed to admit that they’ve long forgotten the story itself.)

“The past is in the past,” Mark thought out loud to himself. “Signe is too sweet to think of something like that…”

“I would hope that my family’s past would not interfere with your opinion of me, Duke Mark Beck.” Signe smiled sweetly up at her host. Mark offered a sheepish smile in return.

“Of course not, Lady Signe Johannessen. Although, I thought we agreed on dropping our titles when talking in private,” Mark retorted. “Besides, I won’t officially be pronounced Duke until after our marriage.”

“I suppose not.” Signe played with a loose string on her black dress, the richness of the color adding a striking contrast to her fair skin. “Mother thought it best for us to spend more time together before we move forward with our, ah, agreement.”

“Of course.” Mark immediately straightened up and adjusted his suit. “Where would you like to go? I don’t think you’ve seen our gardens yet, have you? We’re quite famous for our expansive flower gardens.”

“No, I haven’t,” Signe informed. “I don’t doubt that Duchess Beck has more than exquisite taste in how to decorate her estate.” Mark held an arm out.

“Let’s show the _new_ Duchess of the house her new gardens, then.”

Signe giggled, and took his arm.

“Let’s.”

 

The pair walked in comfortable silence, with a few words of praise from Signe and grateful replies from Mark, as the sun reached its highest peak. Due to Signe’s short stature even with heels Mark had to lean down quite a bit so as to not pull Signe up from the ground which caused an uncomfortable strain on his back. Even so, Mark decided not to voice his concerns since there was nothing he could do about their major height difference.

 _It’s like walking with a small child,_ Mark thought to himself with an amused smile. 

Signe could sense how tense Mark’s back was getting and suggested they sit down on the bench right next to the Beck’s private lake. Mark’s sigh of relief rose an involuntary giggle from Signe.

“I haven’t been out and strolled so casually like this in a few days,” Signe admitted once they were seated side by side. “It’s nice to go outside and smell the fresh air after being cooped up inside for so long.”

“I agree. Recently my father has refrained me from going out in order to learn to be the family head once he passes and I rise up to take his place.”

“It’s no good being kept inside all the time. You should be able to explore the world without anyone holding you back.”

“That’s a very noble sentiment,” Mark commented. Signe looked away, her cheeks a rosy color. Mark chuckled at her reaction. She had once disclosed to him that she did not have the ability to feel any sort of romantic attraction for men in general, but it did not mean that he couldn’t flatter her with sincere compliments and grand gestures of friendship. While he did not love her romantically, Mark made sure to honor Signe’s status in the world and be the friend her parents deprived her of growing up in a strict nobleman’s household.

Lord and Lady Johannessen had been rumoured to have sheltered Signe for most of her childhood, house-schooling her in the walls of her estate and keeping her away from children her age in order to raise an emotionally mature woman. Appearances were everything to this family, even if they tended to be a bit more antisocial than the other elites of Kjellberg, but were proud to have raised what they presumed to be the perfect wife for a nobleman of Mark’s status.

Mark himself found that more often than not he was being kept away from his younger siblings to hone in on his studies and build his skills as a Duke of such a wealthy province; he thought that if anyone could come close to understanding Signe’s plight, it would be himself.

“I think it would be nice for us to explore the world together,” Signe said with a far away gleam in her eyes. “Just for a little while. I want to see the summer villa your family has in the neighbouring Kingdom. It sounds wonderful…”

“Perhaps this summer our families can arrange a vacation together there,” Mark suggested. “Give you a taste of what travelling feels like before we get married.”

“I’d like that.” Signe smiled at Mark, her pearly white teeth peeking through her berry-pink lips. “I’d like that very much.”

 

“They look happy together,” Mika said in-between bites of her apple. She sat perched on the branch of a cherry tree, watching the couple in black from a distance, her wings crossed behind her back. “It’s weird.”

“What do you mean, ‘weird’?” Ethan asked, hanging upside down from his legs on the branch of an apple tree right next to Mika’s. “I think it’s sweet.”

“I don’t know. That girl in black is hiding something.”

“How can you tell? It looks like a perfectly normal human girl to me.”

Mika shook her head, her red hair falling like a red river down her shoulders. From where the pair sat, they could only see the back of the couple’s heads. Neither had gotten a glimpse of their faces, so Mika’s judgement on the girl was based purely on her body language and speaking mannerisms. While very telling, without the girl’s facial expressions (or the man’s for that matter) Mika’s assumptions fell short.

“Doesn’t matter, I guess. Anyway, it’s nothing we should concern ourselves with. It’s just a human girl; the worst it can do is break the human man’s heart.”

Ethan flinched at that. Something in the back of his mind echoed.

_I think God is cruel._

Mika stood up on the branch, the tree beneath her unmoving as if she weighed nothing. Ethan braced his arms for impact as he let his legs give out and fell to the ground below.

“Let’s head back. Kathryn’ll probably come looking for you soon.”

“Right.”

They both unfurled their white wings and flew away, leaving behind a secret and a truth.

 

“What’s on your mind?” Mika asked once they landed on Ethan’s private apple orchard. “You’ve been quiet the whole trek here.”

“I feel weird,” Ethan admitted. “Not just on what you said, but like I should go back and find them again. Like I lost something long ago and they have what I’m looking for.”

“Are you sure?” Mika shifted her weight. “It’s not because… _that_ anniversary is coming up, right?” 

Ethan shook his head.

“No, it’s different from that. Whatever it is, I need to find them again and hopefully the feeling will go away. Can you cover for me?”

“What.”

“I’m going to see them again. Kathryn will _flip_ if I told her we were spying on humans again; I need you,” he placed both hands on Mika’s shoulders, “to keep her distracted.”

Mika looked angry at Ethan. Ethan pouted, willing his eyes to water and tilting his head in a way that reminded Mika of her favorite animals: puppies. Mika threw her hands up.

“Ugh, fine! But don’t expect me to do this every time you want to go out in the human world.”

Ethan couldn't help but throw his arms around the girl. 

"Thank you Mika! I promise this is the  _only_   _time_ I'll ask you a favor like this!"

Mika grumbled, willing the blush on her cheeks to go away.

"Just... be safe. I don't want anything bad to happen to you. I care a lot about you, y'know."

Ethan smiled.

"I promise I'll be safe. For your sake."

"...Thank you."


End file.
